Zac Brown Calls Blackberry Smoke “Revival of Southern Rock”

Blackberry Smoke, one of the band’s featured on Zac Brown‘s Southern Ground record label, is recording music Brown feels is currently missing in today’s country. “There’s a lot of room for Southern rock as a genre to enter into country,” he said. “I think that it used to be country — and it disappeared — and I think it reappeared in Blackberry Smoke.” In fact, he refers to this Georgia-based band as “the revival of Southern rock.” With an approach reminiscent of outfits like Lynyrd Skynyrd and the Marshall Tucker Band, the group recently debuted on CMT.com’s exclusive series, Southern Ground Live Presented by Landshark
. Their high-energy performance featured material from their latest album, Whippoorwill, including “Six Ways to Sunday,” “Pretty Little Lie,” “Everybody Knows She’s Mine,” “Ain’t Got the Blues” and “Lucky Seven.” They also performed a mash-up of tunes featuring special guest Jamey Johnson. Blackberry Smoke joins labelmates Nic Cowan, Sonia Leigh, Levi Lowrey, the Wheeler Boys and the Wood Brothers.